Thursday, March 07, 2013

Timed
walking tests are valid measurements to predict community walking in patients
with Parkinson disease, say authors of an article published
online in Journal of Rehabilitation
Medicine. However, evaluation of community walking also should include an
assessment of fear of falling, they add.

For
this investigation, researchers used data from baseline assessments in a randomized
clinical trial. A total of 153 patients with Parkinson disease were included.
Community walking was evaluated using the mobility domain of the Nottingham
Extended Activities of Daily Living Index. Patients who scored 3 points on item
1 ("Did you walk around outside?") and item 5 ("Did you cross
roads?") were considered community walkers. Gait speed was measured with
the 6-meter or 10-meter timed walking test. Age, gender, marital status,
disease duration, disease severity, motor impairment, balance, freezing of
gait, fear of falling, previous falls, cognitive function, executive function,
fatigue, anxiety, and depression were investigated for their contribution to
the multivariate model.

Seventy
patients (46%) were classified as community walkers. A gait speed of 0.88 meter
per second correctly predicted 70% of patients as community walkers. The
multivariate model, including gait speed and fear of falling, correctly
predicted 78% of patients as community walkers.

Comments

I recently attended the young scientist exhibition in Dublin, Ireland and there was a 15 year old secondary school girl Edel Browne from Presentation School, Athenry, Co. Galway who won the individual award in her catogory for her science project about Parkinson's. I really think you should find out more about her project and help her in her research. She was very impressive. Thanks.

Posted by Karen Roberts
on 3/9/2013 2:54 PM

Hello from Ireland - here are details on Edel Browne - http://www.tuamherald.ie/2013/01/16/athenry’s-edel-wins-top-award-at-bt-young-scientist-exhibition/
I do some work with Move4Parkinson's - http://move4parkinsons.blogspot.co.uk/
We'll follow up and see what help she might need.